The General Data Protection Regulation, also known as GDPR, came into being on May 25th, 2018. However, this latest policy has sparked fears in the minds of marketers since then. You ask why? Well, it was because:
33.33% of B2B marketers believed that the introduction of GDPR will drop their conversion rates drastically.
40% of marketers thought that they will have to introduce some drastic changes in their marketing strategy.
51% of all marketers thought that the introduction of GDPR will shrink their emailing lists.
The fears were real, more so because non-compliance could make the marketers bankrupt – fines as high as €20 million or 4% of your global turnover could be imposed – whichever amount is higher!
What’s more, these were not just warnings, but the marketing teams of FlyBe and Honda actually experienced fines from the Information Commissioner’s Office of the UK.
The Impact of GDPR on Email Marketing
GDPR is a name provided to a series of laws related to personal data protection in Europe. The law takes existing data protection laws and fine-tunes them as per the perspective of a digital age.
However, aside from renovating the existing digital laws framework, EU data protection not only stays limited to the EU, but these laws apply to anyone who processes data on an EU citizen.
The official website of GDPR illustrates personal data to be anything – the name, phone, to the IP address of a computer – it could be anything.
So What Do GDPR Means for Email Marketing?
When it comes to email marketing, the personal data that you are dealing with is the email address of your subscribers. As a matter of fact, more than 269 billion emails are sent every day, and this number will soon cross 333 billion emails by 2021.
Undoubtedly, this is a big number, and this is the reason why GDPR is an important topic for marketers as they will need to do take consent of their subscribers to send emails.
The Onset of Permission-Based Email Marketing
Let’s understand how GDPR has changed the way email marketing is conducted.
Obtaining permission from contacts
What does obtaining permission from contacts mean? Well, it simply reflects that if you have people in your mailing list who have opted-in to receive your marketing emails prior to 25th May 2018, then you can still continue to send emails to them – but the key here is that you should have the required consent.
More often than not, the mailing list not only contains the explicitly opted-in subscribers but they also contain subscribers who were automatically opted-in, either through a purchased emailing list or through a pre-checked box.
In that case, you are required to get their consent.
How can you do it? Well, the easiest way here is to send a re-permission campaign. Ask your subscribers if they will like to continue receiving your emails. This will help you cut out the chaos.
Collect new opt-ins and email permissions
Historically, marketers used to extract email addresses entered on a web form or a pop-up and start sending email campaigns to them.
But with the introduction of GDPR – this is no more the case.
You need to obtain the required permissions explicitly with them. This means that you cannot pre-tick a box for them or hide certain things under your privacy statement. If you wish to send email communication to your prospects, it is essential that you get that permission from your prospects.
How can you do that?
You can choose to go for double opt-in. This is an automated mail that is sent to the new subscribers to confirm that their email address is correct and that they have actually signed up for the marketing communication from you.
The good news is that you can easily integrate double opt-in with your email marketing campaign with Mailpro.
Segmentation, automation, and more
Email marketing is now greatly impacted by marketing automation. This practice allows you to send emails to your subscribers automatically.
However, with GDPR, you need to be increasingly aware of who you send and how you send. This means that you cannot send onboarding email, lead nurturing emails and the likes randomly.
You need to segment your emails as per the rules of GDPR. If you are confused about all this development, Mailpro will take care of all the tasks for you. Mailpro is GDPR compliant and manages your data in line with the requirements set by the new laws.
The Next Steps
Long story short – if you are looking for the best email marketing software which cannot only help you in managing your email marketing campaigns but can also ensure that you are in line with the latest GDPR laws – Mailpro is what you need. Try it today.